TA’s ratify new union contract

By Megan Durisin | Originally Published: 04/28/11 9:17pm |Modified: 04/28/11 9:17pm | No comments

The members of the MSU Graduate Employees Union, or GEU, ratified a new four-year contract — which will include increases in pay and better health and dental care — by a 94 percent vote.

The union represents about 1,300 graduate student teaching assistants on campus.

Typically, a new contract is negotiated every three years. This agreement marks the first four-year contract, said Andrew Cooper, GEU vice president of organizing and outreach.

The contract will go into effect May 16 if ratified by the university.

Theodore Curry, associate provost and associate vice president for academic human resources, said he expects the university to ratify the contract, which he believes is fair for both graduate students and the university with the current MSU budget situation.

According to the new terms, teaching assistants will receive a 1.5 percent pay bonus this August, Cooper said. They will receive a 2 percent raise in both 2012 and 2013 and a 1 percent raise in 2014, he said.

The GEU also negotiated a new dental insurance plan with Delta Dental of Michigan, Ohio and, Indiana, and MSU will pay half the cost, Cooper said. As far as health care, the union negotiated to remove a pre-existing conditions clause and raised the per-injury and per-illness caps to $250,000.

The contract also creates a pool of 100 credits to be given out to teaching assistants who are required to take more than the nine credits per fall and spring semesters and five per summer semester, for which MSU currently waives tuition, GEU president Sam Otten said in an email.

Cooper said a working group also will be working to reevaluate MSU’s current tuition waiver policy, which waives fewer credits for teaching assistants than most Big Ten universities, he said.

Also in the contract, undergraduate students now are required to fill out SIRS forms for all classes taught by teaching assistants, who often need student reviews when applying for academic jobs after graduation.

University spokesman Kent Cassella said the assistant vice president for human resources and the director of employee relations are authorized to sign the collective bargaining agreement.